


A Brighter Morning

by starblessed



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Married Life, Post-Canon, phillip's family is awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 19:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13348215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starblessed/pseuds/starblessed
Summary: One month into married life, Anne wakes up in the morning to find the space next to her in bed empty, and raised voices coming from the hallway. Their visitors are less than welcome.





	A Brighter Morning

**Author's Note:**

> written for a tumblr prompt: "Post-Movie: Philip and Anne are married (I know that I wasn’t technically illegal in New York for interracial marriage) and Philip getting into a row with his parents about it."
> 
> phillip carlyle is a grown man and he can do what he wants, let him live.
> 
> again, my tumblr is [abroholoselephanta](http://abroholoselephanta.tumblr.com/) and i’m accepting The Greatest Showman prompts!

Anne wakes up this morning as she does on all the others: to sunlight filtering through the curtains of their room, casting a warm glow upon the pillow next to her.

She’s always considered herself an early riser, but Phillip’s got her beat. She’s gotten used to waking up to find the side of the bed next to her empty, but she doesn’t mind. Not when she can always hear him in the next room, bustling around the kitchen and humming to himself as he prepares breakfast. This morning, he is quiet; but the savory scent of frying eggs reaches her, and she smiles as she turns over.

The door is closed this morning. This is the only thing that strikes her as unusual about the otherwise delightful routine. Phillip always leaves the door ajar, because he knows she likes knowing where he is. (The first night after they moved into Phillip’s apartment together -- a move that Anne, so used to sleeping in tents and living on the circus grounds, was hesitant to make -- she woke to find him missing, and was so alarmed that she jumped up and began searching the house. Phillip was only in the kitchen, but it took at least an hour -- plus many apologies and a delicious breakfast -- to calm her down. She knows Phillip would never go away, but the thought of being left behind terrifies her.)

Anne casts a hand up by her head, allowing it to bask in the morning sun. Fractals of rainbow light gleam upon the ceiling. She smiles, wiggling her fingers to make the reflection dance. As long as that ring is on her finger, it is a vow. Phillip won’t be going anywhere.

Married life is different in more ways than one. The biggest change is that Anne now lives in a moderate-sized apartment in a decent part of town. It’s not “respectable” enough to ban people like her, nor are the people who occupy it so unworldly as to be scandalized by her and Phillip living together. It is still strange to have a house like this after so many years of living at the circus.

Tents and cots have been replaced by flowing curtains and a plush, comfortable bed. She is no longer lulled to sleep by the sound of her brother snoring on the other side of the room. Now, there is only Phillip at her side, his arm around her waist, his breathing steady against her chest.

She goes to sleep at his side every night, and wakes up with him in the morning. She couldn’t ask for anything sweeter.

Except maybe some orange juice, and the freshly cut fruit Phillip loves having for breakfast every morning. She pushes herself up in bed, yawning to herself. The sun is high in the sky; maybe she slept later than she thought.

It occurs to her then that she still can’t hear Phillip.

The door is shut, so she can’t hear his usual morning bustle. This is something she’s come to enjoy, so she’s a little dismayed. Anne sits up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and rolls her shoulder to stretch them out. She’s just getting to her feet when a raised voice suddenly breaches the barrier of the closed door.

“What I do with my life is my concern! I don’t need the approval of people who openly disagree with everything I am!”

Phillip’s voice is high and strained with anger. Immediately, Anne realizes that something is wrong; they’re not alone in the apartment. Her suspicions are confirmed a second later by the sound of a woman gasping, and then a man’s voice snarling back something too low to make out.

Hastily, Anne scrambles for her morning robe and tucks it around her. It would be easy to get dressed, but she’s not sure there’s time for that. As much as she dislikes being seen in such disheveled dress, she knows it won’t change Phillip’s parents opinion of her anyway.

The two of them have gotten good at escaping their pasts. They push their individual histories, all the good and bad things that brought them here, back in the shadows. They hide in the light they’ve created for themselves, and that’s where they can be free.

From the moment Phillip proposed to her, Anne’s greatest concern was his parents; but he insisted that what they thought didn’t matter. “I’m a grown man,” he told her. “For as long as my parents are filled with hate, I can’t love them. However they feel about the life I’ve chosen to lead doesn’t matter as long as I’m happy, and I’m never happier than when I’m with you.”

Anne could not lie to herself; the reassurances pleased her. Still, the thought of severing the ties between Phillip and his parents (awful as they were) for good twisted something in her stomach.

“Besides, they’ve already disinherited me,” he replies cheerfully. “What else can they do?

Show up at their apartment early in the morning, apparently. Anne creaks open the door and takes a few tentative steps into the hallway, bare feet passing against the wooden floors. She isn’t sure what to expect.

Phillip stands in the apartment foyer, hand on the open door. His parents, wrapped in silk and furs, linger in the doorway. No attempt has been made to invite them inside; Anne can see that Phillip is determined to keep them out. Phillip’s mother has a hand over her mouth, distress twisting her regal features. His father just looks _mad,_ and it’s an icy sort of fury that Anne has recognized in the eyes of a thousand people before him. She’s seen that disdain directed towards her on the street, as if her mere existence is an affront to everything a complete stranger stands for. She doubts Phillip has ever had that hatred levelled on him before. From his own father, no less -- she curls her lips in disgust.

“You have disgraced this family. You’ve not only dragged your good reputation through the mud, but ours as well. To run off to the circus was careless enough, but now this? Bedding some colored girl --”

“The woman in the next room is my _wife,_ and you will speak of her with respect. You have no right to do otherwise.” Phillip’s voice is rock hard, volcanic rage churning just beneath the surface.

“Your _wife?”_ Phillip’s mother cries. She reaches out, seizing Phillip’s arm; Phillip flinches but does not pull away. “Please. Phillip, consider all of this. It’s not too late to salvage your reputation. Things won’t be the way they were, but at least you can restore some semblance of respectability!”

“And move out of this hovel.” Mr. Carlyle’s impeccable shoe scuffs against the hallway floor. “It’s disgusting.”

“We can have the marriage annulled,” Mrs. Carlyle goes on, unperturbed by the interruption. “It’s bound to be barely legal anyway, states besides New York have stricter laws about that sort of thing. You can come home, Phillip. Write your plays again. We’ve always urged you to pass the bar, but if you don’t want to be a lawyer, there are so many other opportunities --”

“Mother,” Phillip says, trying to pull away. “Please.”

Mrs. Carlyle holds fast. “Please, Phillip, come home,” she insists, beseeching her son with fervid, desperate eyes. “Leave this delusion behind you.”

Everything else has stung, but that’s the nail in the coffin. Phillip draws back, shaking his head. His arm slips out of his mother’s own.

“This _delusion_ is my life, mother,” he replies. “The existence you beg me to return to is one I left behind over a year ago. I understand the price! I’ve lost my fortune, my respectability, and nearly my life. But I’m far happier than I can remember ever being. I’m happy with the circus, and with Anne. I finally feel alive, for the first time in a long time.”

He takes a step back from the door. A great crevasse seems to open across the floor, severing the connection between Phillip and his old life. He takes another step back, and the distance grows. It seems unbreachable.

“If you don’t consider my happiness most important,” he says, “then what sort of parents does that make you?”

“We raised you --” Phillip’s father protests, at the same time his mother exclaims, “We _loved_ you!”

The past tense hangs in the air like a curtain over a stage. Phillip regards the two people in the doorway as if they are strangers.

“I’d show you to the door,” he says, “but I think you’ve already found it. Father, Mother. Goodbye.”

The door closes.

For a moment, silence hangs over the apartment. Phillip’s hand is flat against the door; his back trembles with deep breaths. He does not hang his head, but he does not move. For a moment Anne wonders if he has been paralyzed.

Then he pulls back from the door. Without looking over his shoulder, he says to her, “I hope that didn’t wake you.”

“Not at all,” she replies, voice soft. Then she sniffs the air, and her nose crinkles. “The eggs are burning.”

Phillip curses and rushes into the kitchen, leaving the door behind him. Anne pulls her robe tightly around her and follows. She finds him scraping burnt bits of egg out of their old pan, scratching the thing up even further.

“I’m sorry. I was… I was trying to make you breakfast, but they interrupted. I don’t know how they found my apartment… I never should have answered the door…”

Anne wraps her arms around his waist, and his voice dies in his throat. She hooks her chin over his shoulder and frowns down at the burnt dish.

“Mix some baking powder in some hot water and boil it,” she tells him, “and that should come right off. What d’you say we try making breakfast together?”

It takes a moment to coax out Phillip’s smile; but when it appears, it’s like a flower opening its petals to the sun. “I think you’re brilliant,” he replies, and leans in to kiss her cheek.

Anne has her own regrets about Phillip’s family situation (family is an important thing; she’d do anything to get her own parents back), but she cannot blame him for cutting himself off from them. She’s seen the sort of people they are, felt their blows firsthand. Phillip’s life before the show was repressive enough that he was nearly strangled by it. Now, he is finally able to breathe.

Anne plays a part in that, and she’s glad for it. Getting to see Phillip happy every day is reward enough. They perform alongside each other each evening; go to bed in each others arms every night; and when Anne wakes up in the morning, she always knows that Phillip is there.

Married life is _wonderful._

However Phillip’s parents feel -- about him, about them, about the person their son has decided to become -- it doesn’t matter. They can take nothing away from them, because they’ve got all they need right here. As long as they’re together, Anne decides, the world seems like a much brighter place. Nothing -- not even their pasts -- can keep them from soaring together.


End file.
